Call center personnel most particularly those personnel subjected to repetitive typing tasks in which the arms must be repeatedly positioned in response to consumer elicited information induces unbelievable physical stress to neck and arm portions of the human body. “Call center representatives” are women and men who assist residents, businesses and other clients in establishing or changing product orders, resolving problems, billing and a host of other customer related activities. Contrary to the popular image that suggests call center personnel are all young, single and have high turnover, more than half of those responding to the report are forty (40) years of age or older. Few of them (10%) are under 25 years of age and almost half are currently married and 44% report that they have had at least one child under the age of 18 at home living with them. The median worker has worked for their employee for 10 years and has worked in the current position for 4 years. Succinctly stated, call center representatives interacting directly with the public appear to be middle age, or rapidly approaching middle age, are under tremendous pressures to perform within deadlines suggesting a very high pressure environment and are expected to perform without making mistakes. This combined pressure obviously manifests itself in a variety of tension related maladies including, but not limited to, neck tension and arm fatigue in association with repeatedly typing data into a computer that has been structured for call center representatives/client customer interaction.
A recent survey citing stress in the call center entitled “A Report On The Worklife of Call Center Representatives In The Utility Industry” written by Stephanie Luce and Tom Juravich, documents the physical and mental stresses placed upon such workers. The Luce/Juravich report in part found that (a) almost two-thirds (61%) report that the sufficiency of their privacy is “poor” or “extremely poor”, (b) almost three quarters (72%) report the pace of work has “increased” or “increased dramatically” over the past year, with 78% reporting these same changes occurring over the past two years, (c) approximately one half (48%) report that staffing is “inadequate” or “extremely inadequate”, (d) the most significant factors contributing to stress include demanding customers, time pressures monitoring and pressure to complete calls, (e) one third (30%) report that stress often affects call center personnel physically and emotionally, (f) forty percent report that stress “often” or “regularly” affects their work performance, (g) workers report a variety of physical manifestations of stress including fatigue, irritability, inability to relax, headaches and backaches with almost one third (31%) report missing some work days due to stress, with a median of five days missed days per year.
Many employees spend a good portion of their day on-line, although some define that as being on the phone and others on the computer. Regardless, the median worker is on-line 84 percent of their day. As a result, 23 percent feel they never have enough time to complete other tasks, and 44 percent feel they have enough time only some of the time.
On a ten-point scale, with ten being the highest, one third of those surveyed (32 percent) rate their current stress as a ten. The overall average is 7.9. Looking at specific factors, “demanding customers” stands out clearly as the most stressful aspect of the job, with 60 percent reporting this feature as very stressful, and more than three-fourths reporting this as causing “very much” or “much” stress. The other most stressful features are “time pressures,” “monitoring,” and “pressure to complete calls.” This reflects earlier responses noting formal quotas for the number of calls that must be made per day, but not for the amount of sales.
In terms of physical conditions, more than 40 percent of the respondents say that they often or regularly experience fatigue, irritability, inability to relax, headaches, backaches, and vision problems. Much less common are hearing and respiratory problems.
A national study by Office Organix identified computer workers at risk for stress injuries. The study concluded that over 18 million Americans are at significant risk from RSI (risk stress injuries) including carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and lower back injuries. Call center representatives clearly fall into this category of computer workers. In the unique situation of the call center representative, however, it is easily envisioned where the believably high pressure requirements inducing stress enhance the maladies caused by the workplace failure to provide properly sized and positioned computing furniture. By providing a unique apparatus to support the pressure areas of the human neck and to assist the call representative in minimizing the adverse consequences of gravity, the instant invention directly addresses two most significant risk factors to the typical call representative. With respect to the study conducted by Office Organix, it was found that 51% of organizations placed keyboards too high and thus contributed to neck, shoulder and wrist stress leading to CTS causes. The monitors placed too high in 65% of workers contributing to neck and shoulder stress and 47.8 cradle a foam between the head and shoulder during calls instead of using a headset. The report further found that especially dangerous over time 51.2% of respondents report when keyboarding they support their upper body by resting on their hands with a real red flag being that 59.8% suffer from wrist pain during computer work while not alleging to eliminate exposure to CTS causing events, the instant invention by affording a support mechanism which at the users direction can position the arms in a manner to minimize CTS symptoms, the instant invention greatly assists in lower the cost of business from CTS absenteeism which frequently exceeds $50,000 per year per employee when wrist surgery is required. Simply stated, though many of the costs associated with poor equipment design could be avoided with simple changes in equipment placement and employee involvement in ergonomics which changes in involvement do not appear to be in the near future. Consequently, an object of the instant invention is to provide a means by which call center/computer workers can reduce likelihood of injury occasioned by repetitive arm/wrist movements and stress inducing cognitive factors.